


This Web of Lies Is More Intricate Than A Snowflake

by Wolves_of_Innistrad



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Mutual Non-Con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:16:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4804235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolves_of_Innistrad/pseuds/Wolves_of_Innistrad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If anyone asked Barry how he got here today, walking through a grocery store with Captain Cold, with Len at his side? Well, he could probably narrow it down to about five instances.</p><p>or, Five times the Flash and Captain Cold had to pretend to be dating and the one time they didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oliver

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, just going to put it out there that yes, there is a bit of a non-con moment here and yes Barry and Len don't react to it negatively at all, it will be explained a bit later in the story.
> 
> Also this story is just, it's ridiculous I'll say that. XD So if there are any inconsistencies or things that don't make sense, yeah, I don't curr it's just crack.
> 
> Written for day two of Coldflash week - Fake dating/fake married.

          Barry hated the Rainbow Raider, he really did. The guy was causing a mess all over Central City, causing police to attack bystanders, starting jealous fights between best friends, even sending an entire birthday party of children running for the hills from a suddenly very depressed and disturbed clown.

          Of course, Barry had tried defeating him the same way as before but, well, that hadn’t gone as well as he’d expected when Captain Cold happened to show up at just the same time.

          “What are you doing here Cold!?” Barry questioned, eyes flicking unnaturally fast between the Raider and Cold.

          Captain Cold smirked, lips turning up and eyes surely full of mirth even hidden under those darn goggles. “Well you see kid, Central City is going to hell in a handbasket and I, for one, don’t take kindly to my city burning to the ground. At least, not unless I’m the one that lights the match. That just wouldn’t be cool.”

          A loud groan ripped through both Barry and Bivolo, the two of them even sharing a commiserating look before both remembered their places.

          “Look here Cold, just leave this to me, Central City is under my protection,” Barry warned, stepping closer.

          Len adopted a faux shocked expression before also moving into Barry’s space. “Oh really? And how’s that working out for Central, huh Flash? I certainly don’t remember clowns terrorizing schoolchildren when I was the biggest name in town. Maybe you should chill out and let me handle this one.”

          “How dare y- I mean rea- Argh!” Barry shouted, gloved hands moving up to pull at his hair and sliding over his cowl instead, forgetting about it. “Will you please just shut up and let me do my job?”

          “Maybe if you were doing a better job I wouldn’t have to come out here and do it for you Flash.”

          “Um, guys?” Bivolo started, but was cut off by the bickering of the two men. Trying again, he tried to get a word in but was shouted down by the others until finally.

          “WHAT?!” both Barry and Cold screamed, faces inches from each other, both practically snarling as their attention turned to Bivolo, Cold throwing his goggles down to stare at him.

          “I think the both of you have some… Unresolved tension to work through, why don’t I help?” Rainbow Raider said, before flashing lights at the both of them.

          Of course when Barry doesn’t come back Cisco and Caitlin get worried. Luckily enough, or so they believe, Oliver and Felicity happen to be in the city on business and they send Oliver out with a small strobe light affixed to his shoulder to stabilize anyone he comes into contact with.

          And that is how the Green Arrow walks in on Barry Allen with the Flash suit around his ankles being plowed hard by Captain Cold, wearing only his parka and goggles slung low around his neck.

          In the span of a few seconds Barry’s mind clears and, well, this is certainly not a situation he expected to be in. He’s thankful his mind can work at super speed too when needed because his brain quickly tries to process everything that’s going on as he watches Oliver move in slow motion to notch an arrow.

          He doesn’t blame Cold, knows this wasn’t either of their choices or doing, even if it might not have happened had Cold just stayed away, but he was just as careless to let Bivolo get the drop on them. Knowing Oliver will surely kill Snart for this, even if he was just as much of a victim here, Barry says the only thing he thinks will stop Oliver.

          “Wait! We, we’re, um, me and Cold are, uh, you know, uh, dating…” Barry says, and he feels Cold tense behind him.

          “WHAT!?” Oliver shouts, and there is now actual spittle on Barry’s face. Spit that is not from the maddening kisses he and Snart just shared moments ago but Oliver’s furious screaming and apparent inability to say it not spray it.

          Sighing, Barry speeds around, dressing himself quickly before he realizes that yes, it may be awkward, but he should probably dress Len too.

          Len is quiet for the duration of Barry and Oliver’s short, tense conversation. Oliver is certainly not happy about this supposed development, but Barry can hear Felicity berating him in the background of his comm link to Cisco and Caitlin for being a hypocrite. Barry isn’t exactly sure what Felicity means, but he knows better than to ask Oliver right now. Or ever.

          Afterwards Oliver seems to be slightly less murderous, and his face has faded from a matching bright red of Barry’s suit to a more neutral flushed pink. Small miracles. Stomping over towards Len, Barry wonders if he’ll need to intercede, but it appears that the Green Arrow simply wishes to congratulate them.

          Oh how wrong Barry was.

          The words were quiet enough eh could only catch a few but he is certain he heard very clearly “hurt him… Arrow to chest… unmarked grave… pacific ocean,” and frankly that was more than enough for Barry.

          "Ok, well this has been revelatory and entirely mortifying, let’s not do it ever again, ok? Ok!” Barry says, all false pep, before speeding Snart out of there.

          When he stops his eyes catch Snart’s and then they simultaneously both break out into laughter. It’s fucked up and weird and so very wrong, but then again, what about Barry’s life isn’t?

          “Fast thinking there Flash. You really kept your cool under pressure,” Snart says and Barry nearly chokes on his own spit.

          “God! Do you have to make everything a pun Cold?” Barry asks, exasperated, but maybe a bit breathless from laughter as well.

          “It’s not every day I learn I’m dating Central City’s biggest hero, cut me some slack. I only hope one thing,” Snart says, stepping close and oh, Barry feels a little cornered right now even though they are in the middle of an empty parking lot. “Your speed doesn’t carry over into the bedroom Scarlet, that’d be an awful shame.”

          Barry blushes, turning a darker red than even Oliver had, before flashing out of there. Really he should have stayed to argue, of course Len knew that wasn’t true his mind supplied. Then he remembered why Len knew that wasn’t true and he shuddered, and he honestly wasn’t sure what emotion caused it.


	2. Iris

          After that night Barry tries not to think about it much, besides maybe being a bit more forceful with Bivolo when they finally catch him.

          Sure he knows that he could just admit that they’d been whammied by Bivolo and not have to keep dodging the weird looks Cisco and Caitlin were giving him, but honestly he’d rather not have Oliver wrath rain down on Snart. The man may be a lot of things, but this wasn’t one of them he wanted associated with him, even after his betrayal.

          He manages to avoid anyone else finding out, swearing Cisco and Caitlin to secrecy. That is, until Cold sits right down in front of him at Jitters.

          “Col- Snart!” Barry starts, nearly spilling his coffee on himself.

          “Play it cool kid, I’m incognito,” Snart says and Barry laughs, high and a bit hysteric.

          “Seriously? You? Incognito? You’re not wearing the parka or goggles, but that’s literally the only thing different about you,” Barry argues.

          Snart looks affronted, staring down at himself before turning back with a frown to Barry. “I’ll have you know I chose this outfit specifically to be congruous with common day time apparel for both this neighborhood and my age group,” Snart counters, straightening the heather grey sweater he’s wearing and fiddling with the cuffs of the white undershirt showing at the edges of his sleeves.

          Barry’s eyes about roll out of his head and out the door, but thankfully his big mouth stops them.

          “Is your age group octogenarian orthodontists?”

          Maybe not so thankfully.

          Cold’s lips quirk up almost imperceptibly, just a flicker of movement in the muscles before he’s slowly baring his teeth, eyes searching for something over Barry’s shoulder. Barry is a little scared of that smile, but before he can turn to see what Snart is looking at he watches Cold’s mouth form the three little words that he never wanted to hear come out of that sickly sweet baritone.

          “Hello Miss West,” Snart calls, and Barry whips around just in time to see Iris walking in. She quirks her head, but when she sees Barry she smiles, coming over and hugging Barry from behind, standing with her hand on his shoulder.

          “Bear hey!” Iris greets him, smiling brightly before looking at Snart closer. “Who’s your friend?”

          Barry watches as the predatory smile gets exponentially larger and he silently mouths “no,” but his pleas fall on uncaring ears.

          “I’m Barry’s boyfriend, Len. He's told me so much about you,” Snart says, and Barry is going to kill him. He’s never considered murdering Len, Snart! For his crimes before, but he’s seriously rethinking that now.

          Iris’ eyes nearly bug out of her face, spinning Barry in his chair, nearly knocking him off it as she grips his shoulders and shakes him. “Bear!!! Why didn’t you tell me you were dating again?” she nearly shouts in the noisy café, barely even earning one glance in their direction.

          “I, um, well… He’s just, he’s joking Iris,” Barry squeaks out, feeling awful when Iris deflates, smile falling from her eyes before her lips follow suit.

          Of course that would be when Cold pipes up again.

          “Oh Barry, don’t play coy,” he says, gripping Barry’s hand that he’d foolishly left unprotected atop the table and stroking it. Stroking it!

          Turning to Iris, Len keeps brushing his cold fingers over Barry’s trembling hand as he speaks directly to his former flame.

          “Don’t mind him, he’s just got cold feet about telling people about us,” Snart supplies, turning a fake smile at Barry. “You see,” Len begins, moving in close to stage whisper to Iris, “He’s worried that people will think I’m his, oh, what was the word he used? Ah, yes, sugar daddy.”

          Iris cackles and Len leans back in his chair, smug as ever while Barry wishes he could just let the ground swallow him up whole. He’s so disturbed by the thought that he forgets to jerk his hand out of Snart’s, or to really do anything to try to deny the fallacious claims.

          “Ok, Barry, he’s amazing you have to keep him,” she actually whispers to Barry, who just groans, letting his head thunk onto the table. “Sooo, Len, what do you do for a living if Barry’s so afraid of you being his sugar daddy?”

          And now Barry turns his head up, smiling wickedly at Snart, expecting the man to break into a cold sweat. Pun intended.

          Instead Len casually answers “I deal in quite a few things, securities, antiques, import and export.” He says it so casually, so matter of factly, that even normally skeptical Iris takes it at face value, leaving Barry flabbergasted.

          15 minutes later and iris is leaving them alone with instructions that they absolutely must have a double date night, to which Barry vehemently argues against, and surprisingly Len agrees. Iris pouts, but understands when Barry tells her, reluctantly, that this is all very new and confusing and he really doesn’t want anyone to know yet.

          She acquiesces, but not before assuring Barry that she totally approves of Len and that he’s “the hottest guy you’ve ever been with, even if he is a bit older.”

          Returning to the table, Barry just looks at Snart, trying to puzzle out where all that evilness came from.

          “What were you really here for Snart, because as creepy as you are, I highly doubt you’ve resorted to stalking…? Yet,” Barry says, voice tired.

          Snart places the iced coffee he was nursing delicately back onto the table before leaning in close. “Well, I had come to tell you to make sure you never pretend we are dating again, even if it may have saved my life. Of course, once I saw the lovely Miss West come in I knew I had to have a little bit of fun.”

          “That’s another thing, how do you know who Iris is?”

          “I’ve done my research Barry, haven’t you?”

          “I don’t typically tend to read about master criminals. And, as you know, all your files are gone now anyway.”

          Snart just smiles serenely at that, so very proud of himself.

          “I should have let the Arrow shoot you,” Barry sighs, resigned as he slumps in his chair, carding his own hair.

          “And how would that have gone? Especially when you owed me.”

          “Owed you? For what? Betraying me?!” Barry hisses.

          Snart just chuckles, straightening up as he grabs a jacket, not a parka, and begins to put it on. “Why Barry, haven’t you guessed? For keeping those delicate little hands of yours clean of quite a few crimes. Kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, human trafficking, just to name a few,” Snart shrugs as he stands and Barry freezes.

          That’s, well, it’s definitely not _not_ true.

          “So you did all that for what? To keep me from doing something bad?” Barry asks, face a mask of confusion.

          “Oh Scarlet, I have a plethora of reasons for doing what I do, but yes, that might be one of them.”

          “And what are the others?”

          “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

          Before Captain Cold, Snart, walks away, Barry grips his wrist. “Really, you did that to keep me, what, moral?”

          Snart stops, seeming to take a breath, considering, before he says “because someone has to protect this city. And sometimes even protectors need someone to protect them, even from themselves.”

          He lets Len go after that, not sure why he suddenly feels both better and worse about the entire Ferris Air debacle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iris is all of us let's be real. Also Sugar Daddy!Len? That's something I need to see in this fandom, come on someone do it so I don't have to!


	3. Lisa

          Len really wasn’t sure how much longer he could take it.

          Lisa had been harping on him for months that he needed to get out and find someone, even just for a night.

          “Your balls are probably as blue as that damn parka and your attitude is shit Len,” Lisa had said, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Why don’t you go find a nice girl, or boy, to corrupt for a night? Hmm?”

          “I don’t want to Lisa,” he’d said, voce stern, laced with finality.

          Of course, when it came to Lisa, nothing was finished until she said so.

          “Come on Len, even Mick gets his rocks off once in a while, and I’m pretty sure he’d fuck an actual fire if it wouldn’t singe his cock off.  Surely if _HE_ can find someone who wants to share his bed so can you.”

          “It’s not a matter of possibility, but desire little sister,” Len retorts, and he knows she hates being called that, but he’s riled up now and this is going to go south fast.

          “Oh you did _NOT_ just ‘little sister’ me Lenny!” Lisa begins, before launching into a tirade.

          Len loves his sister, he really does, but when it’s 3 in the morning and she’s ranting about his nonexistent sex life while he’s trying to plan, things just slip out. He must be really aggravated and sleep deprived because the first thing that comes out isn’t something he planned on saying at all.

          “I have a boyfriend,” he yells, and Len immediately realizes how incredibly stupid that was to say.

          Sure, it shuts her up, for all of ten seconds.

          Then the real shitstorm begins.

          “A BOYFRIEND!?” she bellows, and he’s honestly not sure if that was a scream of rage or a squeal of delight, but it was unholy either way.

          Len knows better than to try to backtrack out of this, Lisa would never allow it and she knows him too well to think he’d lie about something like that. Even if it was a lie.

          “I… Yes, Lisa, a boyfriend,” he says, resigned, rubbing his forehead and pinching the bridge of his nose as he mentally prepares for the onslaught of questions.

          “And you didn’t tell me? Why Lenny?” Lisa practically accuses, marching towards him with fire in her eyes.

          “Because it’s none of your business sis?” Len tries, and even he knows that’s a feeble attempt because Lisa just gives him a look before he relents. He knows of only three things that will throw her off the trail now, and since that Ramon kid isn’t here and he’s not about to reveal the Flash’s secret identity, he goes for the only lie he can think of.

          “I didn’t tell you because… Because I’m dating a badge Lisa,” Len says, and he grips the table, preparing for the slap, but it doesn’t come.

          “You… You, Leonard Snart, master criminal and newly minted supervillain, are dating a cop?” Lisa asks voice low and unreadable. Len nods solemnly, hoping this will be the end of his interrogation.

          Len has never been that lucky.

          Lisa erupts into laughter and that… Well that wasn’t the reaction he expected at all.

          “This is… This is too perfect!” she says, nearly doubled over, wiping tears from her eyes before the smudge her makeup that frankly Len thinks she should have taken off once they got home.

          Len gives her a quizzical look and she breaks out into more titters, coming to sit next to him at the table.

          “You… Lenny you, oh my God!” she laughs again, gripping his shoulder and squeezing. “You’re dating a cop!”

          “He’s not, he’s not really a cop. He just works for the police. He’s CSI,” Len finds himself saying and oh, well that was a convenient half-truth. Sure, he wasn’t actually dating Barry Allen, but now that the thought had arisen he was certainly going to use the kid’s life story as needed for his little charade.

          Lisa backs up for a moment, seemingly sensing something in Len’s voice that even he hasn’t realized and she turns softer, gentler. “Lenny… I’m happy for you, even if you are dating a badge.” She takes a deep breath before pulling him into a hug. “Of course you know I have to meet him now.”

* * *

 

          “’Ello?” Barry slurs, yawning into his phone as he wipes sleep from his eyes.

          “Allen, I need a favor,” comes through the line and Barry is not awake enough yet to be hearing this voice.

          “Cold how did yo- Nevermind, I don’t care. Forget this number and leave me alone,” Barry says, hanging up the phone.

          He hasn’t eve fully laid back down in bed before he can hear his cell going off again. He grabs it and shuts off the ringer before stuffing it under his pillow to muffle the vibrations.

          “That’ll show him,” Barry mumbles, cozying back up to the glory that is his pillows when he hears the house phone ringing.

          Down stairs.

          Where Joe is most likely eating breakfast.

          “Fuck!” Barry mutters before flashing downstairs. He barely make sit in time to grab the receiver before Joe can get to it.

          Joe, who gives him the strangest look until Barry realizes he just flashed into the kitchen at 6 am in only his underwear.

          “Expecting a call Barry?” Joe asks, a suspiciously mirthful smile on his lips.

          “I, uh, yeah?” Barry answers, walking into the other room and ignoring any further line of questioning from his father.

          “Thought that’d get your attention Red,” comes Len’s sultry tone. Sultry, really? Barry has got to get ahold of himself in the mornings; his brain is out of control.

          “What do you want Sn- Just, what do you want?” Barry asks, defeated. It’s honestly too early to deal with his weirdly stalkerish nemesis.

          “I need you to come to dinner at my place,” Len says, and it sounds pained, as if someone were holding a knife to his neck.

          “What?”

          “You heard me Barry.”

          “Why would I ever come to dinner with you?”

          “Because Lisa now believes that I am dating a nice boy from the CCPD who happens to work for the CSI department and as of now she does not know that said badge is also the Flash. So if you want to keep things that way, you’ll come to dinner.”

          “Why does Lisa think we are dating?” Barry has to ask. Honestly, there has to be some kind of logical explanation here, if nothing else Snart is logical in the extreme.

          “Look, it was 3 in the morning, I was trying to plan a heist and she wouldn’t shut up about me getting laid. One thing led to another and it just happened.”

          Ok, not logical at all then.

          “Why me though? Can’t you just, I don’t know, bribe someone else to pretend to be a police officer?” Barry implores, trying to get as far away from the kitchen so Joe doesn’t hear his frankly almost illegal conversation.

          “And watch her murder some innocent idiot for breaking my heart when I engineer the end of this fake relationship?”

          Ok, definitely illegal conversation.

          “Fine!” Barry relents, because if nothing else Barry Allen is self-sacrificing.

          “Thank you,” Len sighs, relief flooding his voice and what?

          “What?”

          Snart doesn’t say anything for a moment before he rattles off an address and a time.

          “Be there, and don’t be late. Lisa doesn’t like cold food. I know you can do it Scarlet,” Snart teases before hanging up.

          Barry’s left to wonder as he stands in their living room clad only in his bright red briefs with the yellow piping (a gag gift from Cisco), when exactly his life became a circus of awkward conversations and miscommunication.

          He desperately wishes it was the day he met Leonard Snart.

          He’s probably wrong about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Len, of course you'd lie about your boyfriend being Barry. OF COURSE.
> 
> Also I couldn't resist mentioning Barry's undies because I'm always a slut for nice underwear.


	4. Joe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big shoutout to Kipsi, Viviegirl05 and Bee for commenting on this recently-ish and re-energizing my drive for it!

          “Chill out old man!” Weather Wizard calls over the storm, gale force winds cutting through the air and nearly drowning out his voice.

          “Only **_I_** get to make cold puns, you windblown hack.  Now move before I have to ice you,” Len retorts, smirking as he pulls his goggles down, readying for an assault.

          It’s at precisely that moment that Barry zips in, skidding to a halt in between the two men, albeit a few yards away.  “What are you two, twelve?” he asks, then with a grin, “Why don’t you both just chill out.”

          Mardon almost smirks at that, or at least he thinks he does; Barry’s not really sure because a blast of cold hits him and knocks him off his feet.  His comms are going crazy, Cisco and Caitlin shouting in his ear and it’s really not the kind of lullaby his brain wants right now as it’s about to plunge into darkness.  Really needed to invest in more shock absorption for the mask.

          Len is stalking towards him, Mardon standing behind them looking between the two.  “I said,” Len starts, kicking Barry in the side, “No one gets to make puns about the temperature but me.”

          Barry rolls onto his side, slightly energized by the kick to the ribs and smirks up at Len.  “So are you saying I’m fired?” he asks, and Len about pops a blood vessel in his neck, he’s sure.

          They’re getting into it when Mardon fires a bolt of lightning from behind.  Barry only has just enough time to flash in front of Len, taking the brunt of it before they’re propelled backwards into a brick wall.  Again, more padding needed.

          He’s blinking his eyes open, barely recovering from the shot as he sees Mardon aiming another one.  It’s all he can do to flash himself, and Cold, out of there.

          Of course, he doesn’t do the rational thing and take them both back to Star Labs, because Barry never makes the rational choice.

          No, instead he flashes them back to his house, Joe’s house, dropping an unconscious Snart onto the bed.  Flash peels off his suit, dragging the parka, now ripped in what was surely going to receive him a shout from Cold later, off the older man’s shoulders and tossing it on the floor.  He gets the man’s shirt off to check there isn’t any major damage as well, but after that he sort of loses focus, gaze a bit cross-eyed from the tattoos and unexpected muscle.

          Barry’s just so tired from the bolt he’d taken he just sort of flops into the bed, not caring that Captain Cold is _right there_.  Really, it’s almost comical how poorly he’d thought this out, and later he’d blame what was probably a mild concussion for this lapse in judgment, but right now he simply fell asleep.

          That’s how Joe West came to find his son clad in only a jockstrap and with an arm thrown over Captain Cold’s bare torso.

          “Bartholomew Henry Allen, what in God’s name are you doing with Leonard Snart in your bed!?” he bellows, rousing both men.

          Snart snaps alert first, eyes scanning for the exits, finding only windows, which he knows are approximately twelve and three quarter inches above the ground, and the doorway rather prodigiously blocked by Joe West’s intimidating figure.  Not that Captain Cold would be intimidated by Joe West, but there is the matter of the gun aimed right at his face.

          Second to stir is Barry who, in his half-awake stupor actually runs his hands over the planes of Len’s abs and smiles for a brief moment before his eyes flick open.  From there it only takes a moment for his eyes to adjust and his brain to kick back on before he realizes how fucked they are.

          Before Barry can launch into an explanation, Snart cuts him off fast.  “Don’t even think about it kid,” he drawls, and only then does it occur to Barry that the situation looks like one that could have been alleviated by explaining they were dating.  Well, if it wasn’t Joe he was going to have to lie to.

          Not having planned on doing that in the first place, Barry launched into a rather rapid explanation of what had happened.  Of course, the problem with that was Joe’s phone had been off, meaning he didn’t get any calls from Cisco and Caitlin.  And Mardon hadn’t wreaked havoc on the city after getting away, so the story didn’t check out.

          “Mhm, alright,” Joe said, one arm crossed over his middle as the other stayed aimed at Snart, albeit a few inches lower.  “So then this doesn’t have anything to do with Iris mentioning you were dating an older, bald-headed man?” he asked, with an expression Barry honestly couldn’t differentiate between a grimace or a smirk.  It honestly might have been both combined in some horrible, particle accelerator like fusion.

          He should be denying this, or at least cursing Iris for airing his fake personal business to their father, but he doesn’t have much of a chance to, because again Snart cuts him off with a shout of “I’m not bald!”  It’s rather firmer than he expected and he turns his attention to the man, the one Barry only just realizes is still sitting uncomfortably close to him since they must have been spooning a bit in their sleep.  He also takes the moment to remove the hand he'd somehow simply _not moved_ off of len's ridiculously ripped abs.  Seriously, how was he hiding this much muscle underneath a parka and a henley?

          Joe gives the man a look, eyeing his head before patting his own, “trust me, I know bald, or balding anyway.”

          “I’m not going bald!  I shave my hair,” Len grits out and oh, this is apparently a touchy subject for him.  Barry’s not actually sure he’s seen him lose his cool, _oh no more puns_ , like this over anything so personal.

          “Or maybe you’re just saying that, like how Bruce Willis did when his hairline started receding,” Barry pipes in.

          “Are we seriously going to argue about my hair-“

          “Or lack thereof,” Barry snickered.

          “-Right now?” Len said, giving Barry a rather impressively raised brow at his interruption.

          “Oh, there will be plenty to be discussed, don’t worry about that,” Joe began, lowering his gun almost completely now, “but first Barry and I need to have a little word, don’t we Bear?”

          Barry just gulps, looking at Len as if the other could save him the way he’d saved Len last night.  He’s not even sure if the other remembers it.  Regardless, he stands, head hung in a mixture of embarrassment, shame and confusion as he begins to walk towards Joe.

          There’s a loud coughing noise from in front of him and an almost strangled cough behind him when Barry looks up, meeting Joe’s eyes which are trailing from his own back towards the floor.  That’s when Barry realizes he’s just in his jock he wears underneath the suit and flashes towards the closet to grab clothes.  The damage is already done though; he’s sure from the look Snart is giving him that the other man saw his ass just hanging out. 

          Oh God, Snart probably thinks he wears these all the time now, and not just because of needing extra support in the suit.

          Although he did buy a couple extra since he liked the feel, but no one needed to know that except for him and his underwear drawer.

          Despite the veritable hundreds of reasons why he should not leave Captain Cold alone in his house, let alone his room, he does to go talk to Joe.  It’s not pleasant, and despite his attempts to assuage his father that he isn’t in fact dating Len, hearing from Cisco and Caitlin only exacerbates the problem as, well, he’d forgotten that they also thought he was dating Len.

          So now Oliver, Felicity, Lisa, Cisco, Caitlin, Iris and Joe all believe he’s dating Snart.  It really can’t get any worse than this.

          As usual Barry’s threat assessment was negligible at best and catastrophically wrong at worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahhaha Oh God I waited like 10 months to post a new chapter I'm such trash. 
> 
> Anyway... I re-read this after some lovely comments from my Wonderful Readers and I actually laughed at how funny it was? Because apparently sometimes I write good??? What?????
> 
> Just so you know I'm imagining that Mark and len were just having their own little kerfuffle and Barry had to step in, despite neither of them currently posing a harm to the city proper. Hence why he sort of just checks out afterwards. Well that and the lightning whammy. Reminder kids, never go to bed with a concussion, you don't have super healing!
> 
> As always, a big thank you to all my Wonderful Readers for the comments, kudos and subs! I hope it was at least sorta worth the wait!


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